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Here we go again
97 Plays1 year ago
If the 5-0 win over CF Montreal felt like the breaking of the dam, the 0-0 tie at FC Dallas suggests there wasn't all that much water stored in the first place. Jeremiah and Aaron try to make sense of what we can make of the Sounders.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to NOS Arietes. This episode of NOS Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of NOS Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounders supporters.
Seattle Sounders' Achievements Celebration
00:00:20
Speaker
They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest.
00:00:28
Speaker
A.O. Shen! Let's go! What a save by Fry! The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS Cup win! Here come three years through the middle to crown it the vehicle! And now they truly can't stop the celebrations. It's the Sounders' MLS Cup! Niko Liddo leaves out!
00:01:12
Speaker
Is that what you young people call twerking?
00:01:29
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of NOS Adiatus, sponsored by Fullpool Wines and our subscribers.
Sounders' Recent Performance Analysis
00:01:34
Speaker
We're recording on Tuesday, April 16th, 2024. I am your host, Jeremiah Shan. Joining me today is my co-host, Aaron Campo and our engineer, Lickett. I also wanted to say thank you to Mark and Aaron for filling in for me last week.
00:01:49
Speaker
which was a lot more fun to talk about, frankly. Coming off easily their best performance of the season and riding high off a five-goal outburst, the Sounders effectively reverted to their previous form in a 0-0 tie with FC Dallas. The result itself wasn't so awful. You'll almost always take a tie on the road against Dallas, but this one felt particularly frustrating. Not only is Dallas a bad team and in possibly an even worse injury crisis than the Sounders,
00:02:16
Speaker
This is a, they're now winless in six since winning their season opener. And the Sounders were as healthy as they have been all year. Despite that, they once again struggled to create chances, especially in the second half when they had just one shot. So Aaron, what's closer to our reality, the Montreal game or Dallas?
00:02:38
Speaker
I think that as a, as a man of science, uh, you have to say that the gaming styles is more, uh, it's just more representative of what we've seen so far. I think you sadly is. Yes. Yeah. I, uh, and, and it's not like the struggles to score or a new phenomenon. Really. Um, they they've been worse certainly, um, in most of the season than they were last year, but you know, it's, it's a trend. It's the thing I think pretty much everyone said.
00:03:06
Speaker
If this thing is going to go haywire, it's going to go off the rails. That's what's going to be the cause of it. It's felt like a worst case scenario so far this year, but one that was not implausible or unpredictable to some degree. Until they can do even 30% of what they did against Montreal with some regularity, I think you have to assume that what we saw against Dallas is more representative of who this team is right now.
Issues in Aggression and Substitution Decisions
00:03:35
Speaker
Yeah. And I think sort of along those same lines, what's frustrating is they had sort of been repeating this mantra of like, once the dam breaks, it's going to really break. And I guess if we were to take it at its most literal sense, I guess that all happened in one game against Montreal, but there was this sense that they just needed to get their confidence back and, and then the shots would start falling and they'd start playing more aggressively and it would all kind of click into place. And they, we, they did all of that against Montreal.
00:04:02
Speaker
And then it was, nope, the same problems that have been haunting them throughout the season were on full display against Dallas. You know, just a lack of aggressive runs, a lack of aggressive passing, a sort of contentness to just hold possession without really pushing the action. It was just a, you know, it was a boring game, frankly. And it wasn't like Dallas
00:04:28
Speaker
had a lot of great chances of their own, like the Sounders, I think played well defensively. It wasn't like the effort wasn't there, but they're, you know, and then of course, when they did have those kind of second runners twice, they pulled this off where they had a second runner.
00:04:44
Speaker
like a front post back post kind of situation and the ball gets to the guy at the back post and Christian Roldon misses. What I think we can fairly say was a genuine sitter. And then Jordan Morris has a maybe a little bit less of a sitter, but a back post header that he puts wide, but kind of a similar situation. And you know, between those two, I think you can argue the center should have scored one. And maybe the feeling around this game is, is really different if they score one.
00:05:15
Speaker
But overall, the performance just wasn't inspiring. No, not at all. And I think that in a vacuum going anywhere in MLS and getting a point on the road,
00:05:29
Speaker
Maybe it's not going to feel great, but you can't be upset, right? But if you were to say what's the absolute worst thing that could happen in this game that is not the sound we're losing, this would have been exactly what I laid out. Real no draw where they don't create a lot.
00:05:47
Speaker
where they have, you know, the opportunities they do create, they have misfires in front of goal yet again. Just everything that felt like the Montreal game had undone, just right back to where it was. So much recycling of possession, no assertiveness, you know, Raoul just completely disappearing again in the second half and somehow still getting, you know, 80 plus minutes.
00:06:16
Speaker
86, he had, I think, two touches in the second half and none after Joao Paulo came in. Was it like the 65th minute, 70th minute, something like that? Yeah. I think he had three touches after Joao Paulo came in.
00:06:31
Speaker
were quibbling here at that point. He had one touch in the box all game. And yeah, just it felt like all of that good was completely undone. And it's against, like you said, a bad Dallas team.
Raul Rui Diaz's Performance Critique
00:06:48
Speaker
I know that points on the road in MLS are tough, tougher than maybe they are in most leagues. Dallas is not a place they've played well historically, but this is a bad, bad team.
00:07:02
Speaker
You know, I'm not asking them to win every game that they play on the road against bad teams, but I'm asking them to look like the better team. Because if you can't look like the better team against FC Dallas, like pretty assertively, pretty confidently, what are we doing? This is not a team that has any right to have elite aspirations if they can't go out and play a heavily compromised FC Dallas team off the pitch.
00:07:32
Speaker
So let's sit in on one of the other, one of the particular elements that I think was another frustrating aspect of this, and that was, you know, not to pick on Raul Rui Diaz, but I think he sort of epitomized, his playing 86-minute sort of epitomized in some ways,
00:07:50
Speaker
the frustrations because he looked like he was not in the game. He only had one shot. It was from, you know, 20 yards out. And that was in the first half. He didn't have any shots in the second half.
00:08:02
Speaker
And he just didn't look like he was effective. And, you know, he deserved to start at this game. He was a monster against Montreal. He could have scored three or four goals against Montreal. Look great. So I understand you reward him. No brainer starting him in this game. You want to bring him out and see what you can get out of him in the second half. Fine. But you know, once gel palo is coming in, why not make a change? You know, why not bring in Danny Musaski also who had a great game against Montreal.
00:08:31
Speaker
who had some energy, who was clearly willing to make some runs and do the kind of things, like provide that energy off the bench. Instead, they only got four minutes out of, or four minutes plus stop a chime out of end of Masovsky. But that's a player who I would have loved to see get 30 minutes in this game. And maybe the sounders get a goal and we can kind of be a little bit more positive about this result. And then when we asked Brian about that,
00:08:58
Speaker
at training today, he gave what I think we all found to be a really frustrating answer. And he said something, I know, well, you know, shoot, I might as well quote him directly because I have it right here. And what he said was, I was hard for me to take Raoul out because he was working hard. Was he effective? No, maybe not.
00:09:23
Speaker
We talk about subs, we talk things through what I have done things differently, maybe. Managing the players is difficult at times. I just felt adding Misovsky on the left and butchering the lineup in an effort to win wasn't worth the risk. So there's two things going on there. One is explicitly rewarding Raul, not for playing well, but for working hard, which
00:09:45
Speaker
come on, what are we doing here? And then Raul is a player whose work ethic has never once been in question, ever. Which is, so it's a weird way to sort of like measure this and it does, but it does kind of,
Fullbacks' Offensive Contribution Discussion
00:09:57
Speaker
to me, a little bit speak to some of his reluctance to make lineup changes unless there is a
00:10:06
Speaker
like he doesn't like to change lineup for form. He mainly likes to change lineup because he doesn't feel like he's getting something out of a player and it's usually effort or if there's an injury. And I think this maybe speaks to the mentality, but the other part of this was he was so set on not taking out Raoul that he felt like the only way he could get Masovsky into the game was to put him on the wing somewhere. And I don't really, I suppose if I'm, he didn't explain
00:10:29
Speaker
his thought process behind where everyone would go there. But my guess is that what he was considering doing was maybe moving Roldan back a line. So having him play next to Jau Paulo. So you take off Obed, I suppose, and then you put Misofsky in there. I mean, I guess they could have done that. But the solution was so much more simple, I thought. It's like, just bring Misofsky in for who he is.
00:10:54
Speaker
Yeah, because the chances the Sounders were creating were aerial chances. There were chances in the box from pretty, I thought, pretty decent crosses. It's not like they were just pumping fruitless balls into the box. They had some really good crosses from deep. Those chances were there. And I think Masovsky has shown how good he can be in the air. That's never been Raul's strong point.
00:11:18
Speaker
It just felt extremely obvious to me. It's like the 60 minute mark on. And you can't tell me you're going to lose anything defensively either by bringing in Masofsky for Rui Dios.
00:11:34
Speaker
Yeah. And so I don't know, that was a really, I understand there's going to be a lot of discussion about the decision to start new who over Cody Baker, even though Baker is who was on the field for all five goals against Montreal. And that's a fair, I don't know, we can talk about that too, if you want. I'm less, I don't know, I found that one to be a little bit less compelling just because
00:12:00
Speaker
you know, knew who's sort of the starter right now, but I do think it does bring up the idea of like, what does a player in general have to do to win a starting spot if not what Cody Baker did, which was, you know, help your team score five goals. Right.
00:12:16
Speaker
move the ball really effectively, be extremely active in the buildup. And, and I think, look, like new, who is the focal point of the talk about who should be one of the guys that should be getting bench. I think that both fullback positions have to be in that conversation. Absolutely. They're getting zero offensive contribution Montreal game aside, they're getting zero offensive contribution from either fullback spot.
00:12:40
Speaker
And that can't, you can deal with one fullback that's more of a stay at home, purely defensive player. You cannot have zero offensive contribution from both fullbacks. You just can't, especially when you have on one side, you have an inverted winger who likes to cut inside and on the other side you have a box to box.
00:12:55
Speaker
Midfielder I saw somebody on reddit say that we have been playing a defensive midfielder on the right wing and that is a crazy thing to say But he's he's playing box to box, right? Like that's his role He's not going to be providing a ton of width in the traditional sense So you've got to get some contribution from your fullbacks and you're just not getting it right now
Lineup Strategy and Tactical Adjustments
00:13:17
Speaker
Yeah, and I suppose Christian not being effective right now is, I mean, I think it's unfair to call Christian a defensive midfielder playing right wing, but he's produced, he is sort of producing at that level right now, unfortunately.
00:13:33
Speaker
I mean, I think his best game was definitely playing centrally. But I think he can be good on the right. And I think he was getting into good positions in this game. But I think that for him to be effective, he needs a fullback that is also contributing, that is creating space for him to do good things in the attack. And he's not getting that support right now. He is not.
00:13:59
Speaker
And, you know, I suppose if there's a silver lining for lack of a better way of putting that, it's that it does look like the excuses of we just don't have available bodies right now, or we're missing too many players to make an assessment, that's starting to go away.
00:14:19
Speaker
Pedro de la Vega back in full training, Xiao Paolo is fully training, but Leo Chu also in full training. Leo Chu was available off the bench. He didn't even play against Dallas. That was another weird one. Yeah, because that's a guy that you kind of think of as being at least in the rotation. If not an automatic starter right now, it's sort of playing on the left.
00:14:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think that it's pretty clear that at some point in the second half, the decision was made, hey, we've got a point on the road, let's just keep it. And I don't think that in the context of the way this season has gone,
00:15:04
Speaker
with the team that you were lined up against. I don't understand how you can make that decision. I just I really don't. You're you're very close to the bottom of the table. You're coming off a big win. You're risking losing all that momentum. I just I think you got to go for it. I really do. Yeah, I almost feel like it was it was certainly worth the risk. I think
00:15:27
Speaker
You know, the, the sounders aren't in a position to, I suppose, take any points for granted. So one point on the road is, is a point that you, like it's still valuable, but it does feel like a game where it was worth the risk of, of throwing some caution to the wind. And again, I'm not even talking about throwing caution to the wind. I'm talking about like, just look at what's going on in the field. And if at least.
00:15:56
Speaker
I think I just feel so much better if they had used their subs effectively in this one where it was like, okay, look, you had these guys available, you put them on the field and they didn't get what you wanted. Sure. That's, that's, that's fair. But the idea that you can't bring on Leo Chu or Danny Masovsky because you're worried about their ability to hold a lead or hold a point on the road against Dallas just doesn't fly with me. That doesn't pass the smell test.
00:16:25
Speaker
No, it doesn't. It's, it's death by pragmatism. I think it is you. No one is asking, like you said, like no one is asking them to put on Morris Masovsky or ideas all at once. And, and just, you know, like, yeah, nobody's asking you to play like you're chasing a goal, but when you can't create anything at all in the attack.
00:16:50
Speaker
And, you know, your nine is so completely invisible and has been for, you know, almost all the second half. What are you losing by making a change? They didn't take a shot in the last 35 minutes of the game. That's crazy. And the best chances they had, they weren't really chances, but the best box entries, the best attacking moves, whatever you want to call them, came through. Just dribbling at people and trying to make something happen.
00:17:20
Speaker
And Tevez running to the in-line at the end of the game. So both of the subs that came on post 85 minutes were the only ones that had any impetus left in them at that point in time. It was so frustrating. It's as frustrated as I've been at tactical decisions in an extremely long time.
00:17:46
Speaker
Yeah, I'm inclined to give Brian a lot of grace when it comes to those kinds of decisions. But this was, this was definitely a game where I was very, very confused. And even he, you know, he even admitted sort of, like he said, like, we, we, we felt like a result, like we were playing well enough that maybe we could pull it out. And it's like, that's not the, like you're, you're, it feels like sometimes he's coaching on vibes and that doesn't, it's not what I want.
00:18:16
Speaker
And I think if you are in the top three and you've been winning your home games and you have shown an ability to score goals outside of one game, maybe I'm a little more willing to allow that, right? Or maybe there's some credibility when you say, I felt like we could get a goal. Right. There's no, I mean,
00:18:38
Speaker
There's no credibility with the attack on this team right now. There's just not. Like, one game did not turn it around for me. And I don't think anybody's behind that. No, no, it's not. That said, Pedro de la Vega potentially could play at it. I don't think he's going to start. My expectation is that he won't start until the Galaxy Home game, which is three games away.
00:19:03
Speaker
progress. I think there's a decent chance Zhao Paolo starts in this game. I don't, you know, it'd be interesting to see what kind of role Leo Chu has or like where, how he's law. It's going to be interesting to see how they, like they are going to have some legitimately tough lineup decisions soon. And it's like, I think Cody Baker deserves to be in consideration for starting, but that's like fourth on the list of really tough decisions. Like who gets benched for Zhao Paolo?
00:19:32
Speaker
You know, I'd like to think Josh attention is still the starter, but.
00:19:35
Speaker
You know, Obed Vargas, I think deservedly was the one who they kept, they chose to keep in the game against Dallas. There's going to be some interesting decisions on the left wing where, you know, Leo, right now it's, it looks like it's a competition sort of between Leo to Pedro de la Vega and, and Jordan Morris, and then they're going to have to decide what to do with forward. If, if Morris isn't, you're starting left mid, is he, is he, you're starting forward as roll radius, you're starting forward.
00:20:03
Speaker
I don't think that's as, that's not a super straightforward answer to me either. I mean, they both got one goal from open play. Right. And I think, do you, I mean, do you bench both, uh, Obed and Atencio and move Morris to the right and move Christian back to the center? I mean, that's another option, De La Vega on the right, I suppose would be another option. I think if I had to,
00:20:25
Speaker
If I had to choose, I'd probably put de la Vega on the right and keep Morris on the left. And if that was the way I was going to go. But that is a valid, another valid decision point that I think
00:20:36
Speaker
I'm sure Brian is going to be forced to grapple with that one because Christian is, when Christian is at his best, I think he's a perfect fit for the way the sounders want to play because he's not really a, a winger. He's asked to sort of tuck in and almost be a second 10 when they're in possession and that works really well for them, but he's not super
00:21:00
Speaker
productive right now. Like he had the pass to Jordan in the second half that could have been an assist. He had the chance that he just needed to poke his left foot out and score. But other than that, he wasn't super involved in the offense.
00:21:17
Speaker
No, which was so upsetting to see after how good it was against Montreal. Right. And I think a lot of players were much better against Montreal than they were in this game or had been to this point in the season, but that was the first time Christian has looked like himself since he came back from the concussions, to me, where he fully looked back to his best.
00:21:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, and this Vancouver game I think is a really good test for them. I'm actually glad that they're playing an opponent that is, you know, an upper echelon Western Conference team right now because I do think it forces them to grapple with some real decisions because
00:22:02
Speaker
This is a team they have to feel like they can beat. These are games they have to feel like they can win if this is really the level they want to be at. And I think this is another potential turning point in the season. If they can get a win here, I think you can realistically look back at the last few weeks and say, okay, progress is being made. Yeah.
00:22:27
Speaker
But if they lay an egg against Vancouver, I think you have to question what it's going to take to turn it around or if it can turn around. Yeah. I mean, I think seven points from three games is by any measure. It's real progress. And, you know, if Brian is frustrated with the sort of mood of the fan base, a great way to shut people up.
00:22:57
Speaker
is to go out and beat Vancouver. They've been, they're not in first place anymore, but they've been towards the top. They look like a realistically, a very good team. I don't think that they're in the long-term going to be a shield contender, but they're a good team. They're the team that you're going to need to beat out at some point this season. If you want to be where you want to be in the league.
00:23:17
Speaker
Absolutely. So, you know, getting this win is a great way to do it. And I think to some degree, sort of retroactively justifies the more conservative approach on the road. But you have to actually do that because if you're into five points from three games or four points from three games and two of those games were home and one was against one of the worst teams in the league on the road. And then you look at all the other results from the season against objectively bad teams.
00:23:47
Speaker
It's a really tough situation to sort of caveat and justify your way out of, I think. Right. Yeah. Yep.
Preview of New MLS Initiatives
00:23:58
Speaker
All, all, all fair points. Well, I think we're going to call this a segment. We're going to come back and I want to talk to you about, or I want to talk a little bit about some of the new rules that are getting implemented or I don't know what they're rules. They are.
00:24:13
Speaker
initiatives, I think is what they're calling them. They're being implemented this week and get your take on that.
MLS In-Game Rule Changes Discussion
00:24:18
Speaker
But you're listening to NOS Adiates and we'll be right back. Welcome back to NOS Adiates. So we wanted to talk a little bit about some of the initiatives that are going to be finally rolled out
00:24:42
Speaker
this week. So these were things that were actually announced before the season. So I guess it's not technically a mid-season rule change because the rules were changed in the off-season and MLS delayed implementing them because of the replacement refs that they chose to use. But there's three main things that they're going to be rolling out this week.
00:25:08
Speaker
Uh, one of them injured players who are down for 15 seconds must leave the field and remain off the field for at least two minutes. Uh, subbed players have 10 seconds to leave. Otherwise a new player must wait 60 seconds to enter the game. And then the final bit is in stadium VAR announcements, which I guess will be made by the referee.
00:25:28
Speaker
We don't need to get too much into that. I think that's easily the most positive change. That's the one that I think everyone understands that we've all been asking for basically ever since VAR was introduced. One of the other changes that was implemented this year, but they went ahead and started using that, was they started showing stoppage time on the in-stadium clocks, which
00:25:51
Speaker
I don't know if you've noticed or not, but I think it's been a great tradition as well. Yeah, I like it a lot. The one game I've been able to get out to this year, I didn't really notice it until I did. And then I was like, oh, that's nice. That's a nice little change. I don't have to start my stopwatch on my phone. But the other two changes, a couple things that are important to note about them.
00:26:16
Speaker
One of them was that they obviously announced these things earlier in the year. The other thing is that these rules have actually been trialed at MLS Next Pro. Both of them were brought in in 2022. The sub thing, I think, actually was for all of 22, and then they did the injury bit halfway through 2022, I think it was. And the subs, that seems to be pretty straightforward.
00:26:46
Speaker
According to MLS, 99.7% of subs actually made it off in time. So at least tells you this is plenty of time for a player to get off the field. I think most of us would probably agree that's a good change. The one that's maybe going to end up being is I think a little bit more interesting is this one with the injury. And it seems to be that the
00:27:09
Speaker
There's concern over being gamed, I think. Is that a fair way of saying it? Or what are some of your worries about the injury thing?
00:27:18
Speaker
I think for me, it's just really easy to see a situation where a player is legitimately hurt and needs some time to sort of gather themselves, whether it's a foul that's not called or just 50-50 contact that is legitimately hard. This one to me is sort of spiritually similar to
00:27:40
Speaker
Um, the, uh, simulation rules around, you know, yellow cards and things like that, where there's just, I think that enough people are annoyed by, uh, time wasting, faking injuries and simulation where we err too far on the side of assuming everybody is trying to cheat.
00:28:02
Speaker
Because I think a lot of the time players go down when there's not necessarily a foul because they're in a situation where they fall over or whatever, and that's not a punishable thing. I'm not saying nobody ever dives, but I think it happens a lot less than people get carded for it.
00:28:21
Speaker
There are plenty of times where players just get hit really hard or they get hit in the balls or they get the wind knocked out of them or whatever it is. I don't feel like they should be penalized for needing some time to gather themselves. I think Chad Marshall brought up the possibility of two late professional fouls and you've got you're playing up a man for the last couple of minutes of the game.
00:28:49
Speaker
I think, is that a situation that's likely to occur that often? No, I don't really think it is. But I do think that it's... I understand the point of the rule, and I know that it's a thing that bothers people enough that they feel like they need to take action about it.
00:29:10
Speaker
Um, I just, I can definitely foresee in the not too distant future, a team playing a man down for a couple of minutes late in a game after a no call. And a player has to go off because they stayed down for longer than 15 seconds and the other T takes advantage and scores a goal. And there's outrage about that. Like I just, I can definitely see that happening. Um, but it's not, I, it's also, it's not the end of the world.
00:29:37
Speaker
Well, one of the things I think is interesting about the way that MLS is sort of framing the injury rule is they're actually framing it as an off-field treatment rule. So they're framing it in this way of if you can't get up in 15 seconds, that's fine. Stay down. You get two minutes to sort of get yourself back together and get back on the field.
00:30:03
Speaker
And they're framing it as a way of taking a less pressurized environment, which I do think that's an interesting way of framing that.
00:30:15
Speaker
But I, it also, I think the real question is going to be how much discretion referees have to actually use it. Like if, because so there's exceptions written into this thing for potential head injuries, goalkeeper injuries, serious medical events and fouls resulting in yellow or red cards. Now the serious medical events, I assume they mean things like if a player is like.
00:30:39
Speaker
having a hard time breathing or something like that where they're not going to rush in back on the, the idea is to not rush them back on the field.
00:30:48
Speaker
but it does allow for some discretion. And I think the red card yellow card is actually an important exception because, you know, I understand Chad made Chad Marshall thinks that he can foul a guy hard enough to keep him down for more than 15 seconds, but not actually pick up a red card. I don't, or a yellow card, but I don't know how many players have that level of confidence that they can pull that off.
00:31:13
Speaker
Uh, where it's like, Oh, I'm just gonna, I'm going to hurt the guy, but not that bad. In a clean way. Great. I'm going to hit him in the nuts, but I'm going to make it look like an accident. Yeah. That's probably your safest bed. Right. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're right. You're right.
00:31:34
Speaker
But it will be interesting to see what kind of discretion gets practiced there and if referees are, you know, because, you know, I've heard, I've seen some people point out that this is probably going to end up being treated like the way that goalkeepers only have six seconds to hold onto the ball. Well, we see how that plays out all the time.
00:31:53
Speaker
And I think that, I mean, honestly, I think that there are scenarios, both fantastical and fairly plausible, where you can point to as being criticisms, but as long as the referees are not,
00:32:05
Speaker
they don't have a scorecard that like MLS HQ is grading them on and they're, they're being given some, some grace and ability to manage the game as they see fit. It's, it's probably going to be a net positive. Um, I just, I kind of like gamesmanship and you know, time's wasting to some degree. And so it's like, I understand that most people don't and they want to get it out of the game as much as they can, but.
00:32:30
Speaker
To me, you lose a little bit of the fun. It does, to me, feel a little bit like you're solving a problem that is more of a. Like a fringe, like this is not the biggest problem facing soccer is. Guys milking injuries.
00:32:51
Speaker
But although I do understand the desire, I think the whole general desire is like, let's get the ball in play and have the, have the ball in play as much as possible. And I think that's a, you know, that's an admirable goal. Yeah, I don't, I think it's really hard to criticize any, any of the intent behind the rule changes, uh, as long as they are, you know, allowed to be intentional rather than.
Impact of New Roster Rules on Teams
00:33:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:21
Speaker
Yeah, no, I would agree with you there. Well, that was mainly, I just wanted to kind of talk about that in this segment. I don't have much else. I think that was- Yeah, there's a lot of mid-season rule changes this year.
00:33:35
Speaker
Yeah, the more concerning, I suppose, thing is these roster rule changes that they're talking about implementing, which I don't know if we really need to get into them. But the rumor, the reports are that MLS is going to essentially allow every team to have three designated players and three U22 spots, which doesn't really help or hurt the sounders.
00:34:01
Speaker
because they already had access to all three U22 spots. And I think there's only four teams that will now have U22 spots. And then there's a potential second buyout available, which
00:34:16
Speaker
I don't necessarily expect the Sounders to use because I don't know if they're even going to use one. I don't really love that rule because it feels like it's just giving more get out of jail free cards to teams that aren't smart about the way they spend the money. And I don't know if I love that. And then what was there was one other rule change that they were talking about, right?
00:34:38
Speaker
I guess there's a tweak to the to the three U22 and three DP is and that's there might be a fourth U22 spot available if you only have two DPS and then in addition to that you would get two million dollars of extra Gamm, but I tend to think that maybe the benefits of that rule are being a little Overblown because in order if you have a third DP, they have a lower cap hit and So you would have to spend the money the Gamm to get that player off the cap hit
00:35:09
Speaker
to get that extra, so it's like the net gain in GAM is not, is overstated, I think, in that net rule. Yeah, because 2 million is 20% of the cap, right? Right.
00:35:24
Speaker
That's a significant amount of money. But if you are using, I mean, I think that it's maybe a longer tail change where teams just change the way they build their roster. Right. I don't think that's necessarily a big change for this summer. Yeah. I think that that's one though that could down the line potentially be a pretty big deal, but it seems more flexibility.
00:35:49
Speaker
If nothing else, it's a good sign for me, if your concern is spreading the cap hits around a little bit more, that there's at least some interest in allowing teams to do that a little more freely. Yeah, we're still nibbling around the edges of
00:36:12
Speaker
what we would call significant roster changes that are going to significantly allow MLS teams to better compete with league and mechies. But it's progress, even if it's not the level of progress we'd all like. Like I don't think MLS needs a fourth DP. I don't think MLS needs to necessarily increase the cap by 50% overnight. Like those are things that could be
00:36:44
Speaker
not as beneficial as, you know, like I guess you could close the gap with League of Mechis, but those are things that I think like the Sounders might struggle to, uh, up with all that, some of that stuff, but we'll see. I think, uh, progress, but not as fast as we want it is, you know, MLS in a nutshell, I would say. So we should be used to that paradigm by now. Right. Right.
Conclusion and Gratitude
00:37:13
Speaker
All right. Well, I think we'll call that a show. Good to be back, Aaron. Thanks for having me back. Good to have you back. Mark last week. Of course. I enjoyed my week off. I think we may, you know, we were talking about this. We may try to work in a little bit more of a rotation between you, me and Mark. People seem to enjoy that. People also seem to enjoy talking about wins. So maybe we can do that more often. Yeah.
00:37:39
Speaker
That'd be good. I think that we should focus on that for now. We should. I agree. Yeah. Uh, yeah, but, uh, so I'll, I'll sign off for me, Jeremiah Shan, Aaron Campo, and Likit. Uh, thank you to our sponsors, uh, full pull wines as well as our subscribers. Thank you so much. Uh, this, I will share that this week we passed
00:38:03
Speaker
5,000 total members that's paid and unpaid. Roughly half of those members are paid. So that's kind of an exciting milestone for us. So I wanted to say again, thank you so much to everyone for supporting this endeavor. And we'll have a couple more episodes this week. That said, this is No Study Yetis. Remember, you will never yell alone.
00:39:27
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!